One of the country’s premier haunted attractions, “Terror Behind the Walls” is located
within the fortress-like structure of

188-year-old Eastern State Penitentiary,
a not-for-profit historic site in
Philadelphia, Pa. After operating as a
notorious prison for 142 years, Eastern
State was abandoned in 1971, and
rumors of ghosts and hauntings spread
widely. In 1991, Philadelphians hoping
to save the site from inappropriate
development hosted the penitentiary’s
first haunt-themed fundraising event for
one night. A quarter-century later, Terror
Behind the Walls now plays for 31 nights
and attracts more than 130,000 visitors
in a season.

Terror Behind the Walls, which can
tap more than 200 actors on a busy
evening, delivers six different horror
attractions for the admission price,
which is dynamically set from $19 to

$45 (2016) based on the day of the week
and nearness to the Halloween date. The
show changes every year to keep the
experience freshly chilling.

Terror Behind the Walls staffershave to stay obsessively on top of hauntindustry and consumer trends to makesure they continue to meet the escalatingdemands of increasingly sophisticatedvisitors. The most recent result of thatquest was The Hex Challenge, whichopened September 16, 2016.

Brett Bertolino, vice president and
director of operations for the Eastern
State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc.,
and vice president of the Haunted
Attraction Association (HAA), takes
Nightmare Zone readers through the
decision-making process preceding The
Hex Challenge launch—including the
escape room option they didn’t take—
and weighs in with some of his views of
nationwide trends.

QWHAT WAS YOUR THINKING AS YOU PLANNED TERROR
BEHIND THE WALLS 2016?

AOur show is constantly evolving. As we prepared for 2016, it was
clear that escape rooms were growing in
popularity. With more than 1,000 escape
room venues operating in the United
States, we knew that they would be a
popular addition for haunted attractions
last year. Yet, we decided not to add an
escape room to Terror Behind the Walls.

One of the things that sets TerrorBehind the Walls apart from many otherhaunted attractions is the immersiveexperience we are able to create fromthe moment a guest arrives until themoment he or she leaves. Instead ofcreating a stand-alone upsell attractionlike an escape room, we opted to createan upsell experience that could beincorporated into the main show.

With The Hex Challenge, we invited
our guests to take interactivity to the
next level. At the beginning of each of
the six attractions, visitors entered a
secret room. They were dared to step
further into the story, to become part of
the action, to take on challenges, to join
forces with the zombies, and ultimately
to escape the massive haunted prison.
By using this model, we were able to
enhance the main show as opposed
to adding a separate experience that
did not further the storyline. Guest
feedback was overwhelmingly positive,
and The Hex Challenge exceeded our
performance expectations.

QWHAT ARE THE NEWEST HINGS YOU SEEHAPPENING WITH YOURVISITORS?

APerhaps the biggest change we have seen in recent years is an increase
in the number of repeat guests. More
and more, guests who came to the event
growing up are now bringing their own
kids. And, we have our super fans that
come to the show many times each season.
We’ve had couples come to the show for
their first dates, and every year we have